Suggestion is Law
by Ayaia of the Moon
Summary: Z for Zachariah. the tried and true alternate ending. If Ann hadn't been successful in planning her escape. Routines with Mr. Loomis, and a life she doesn't quite like. ONESHOT, kinda angsty, but that's what I was going for. :P


It was dark now. The sun had been going down for an hour, and it was finally dark. She hated the dark. She had never hated the dark, but she did now. Things were different in the darkness. They had been different to her for a long time now. In the dark, you could mistake a person for a coat rack, and not know different until too late, when the coat rack was upon you.

Now that darkness had fallen, she had but to wait for the silence that always accompanied it. The silence that haunted her nightmares. The silence meant that the tractor had stopped. It meant that she would soon have the company of Mr. Loomis. She had been leery of the first time he drove that tractor. It gave him a portion of control. Control he now had over the crop, over the house, even over her hair.

Ann didn't like her hair. It was too long. And too thick. Before Mr. Loomis came, constant exposure to sunlight had lightened it to the point of blondeness. And she'd kept it sawed off to tuck under her father's straw hat when she worked the fields. It was too long now. It made her look feminine. Long, straight, and dusty brown. Long to Ann was to the base of her neck, nearly to her shoulders. Many would consider her hair short, but Ann didn't like it.

She remembered the day she had stopped cutting it. She'd had a knife, ready to saw it off as she did every other month when it started bothering her, and Mr. Loomis had suggested she not cut it. His suggestions were law now. She'd stopped halfway, putting the knife on the ground, and Mr. Loomis had evened it up for her.

Mr. Loomis liked doing things for Ann. He made dinner now. Didn't make her cook. Whenever she tried cooking, Mr. Loomis would suggest that she wasn't cooking to optimize the crop. He'd point out that if she used too much of the oil to cook, they'd be hard-pressed to find more.

They were the last people left on earth. Ann hadn't heard from anyone in over a year. Even the radio stations had closed down. Mr. Loomis had reached her valley by chance. And he'd taken over. Ann was only 16. She didn't put up a fight. She tried, at first, but it was futile.

It was routine to her now. When the darkness came, the tractor was silent. When that happened, Mr. Loomis came inside. He'd wash up, then head down the hall to her room, where he expected her to be waiting, as she did every night, and he'd ask her about her day, suggest improvement for tomorrow, tell her about the crops, ask her about the piano or her poetry, and comment on her hair. He liked her hair now.

He would always make the suggestion that she stop shaking. His suggestions were law now. But she couldn't stop. That first night, when she mistook Mr. Loomis for a coat rack, she had tried to fight him. She had tried to defy him. But he'd overpowered her. And he'd do so again and again. He had done so again and again, every night since. She hated the dark now. She was afraid of the dark, and what it meant in her daily routine.

With the morning came dread. Her only escape was sleep. In her dreams, her family hadn't left. It was preferable to her reality of nightly visits from Mr. Loomis. He didn't even care about her. Didn't care what he was doing to her, didn't care about the mess her mind was becoming, just cared that she was in his control. That she was a part of his routine. And that he was a part of hers.

With the end of the night, Ann would again feel a wave of hopelessness and depression crash over her, while she fought to hold back tears. And then the tractor would start, thus her routine began. But she wasn't to that point yet. The silence had fallen, and the front door creaked open. Ann felt her heart beat faster in dreadful anticipation. She withdrew a knife from the shelf in her closet, unsheathing it... in three quick motions, she cut off her hair.

She watched the locks fall soundlessly to the floor, her dusty brown blending with the polished wood of the room. Three and a half inches. All of it straight and brown, leaving Ann's remaining hair shorter than she'd ever cut it. She smiled then, for the first time in two months. Perhaps this change in her routine would be a new beginning for her. Perhaps Mr. Loomis would finally go mad and shoot her, like he did to the last person he stayed with.

Either way, in one act of defiance, Ann Burden had made herself happier, and more hopeful than she thought she'd ever be again.

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A U T H O R S N O T E

Soooo yeah. I have, like, 30 stories trapped in my flashdrive, waiting for me to finish them, but I haven't been doing so. I've been starting my Harry Potter fangirl crazyness, shopping endlessly for ties and hair dye, and my flashdrive started protesting. I lost it twice, and decided it was a sign to seriously buckle down and type.

For those of you who don't realize what exactly this is, I don't blame you. All freshmen in my high school had to read this book, and it made my brain happy, so I bought it. It's called Z for Zachariah, by Robert C. O'Brian, and it's about this girl who thinks she the last person in the world after nuclear war has broken out.

I always entertained the thought of an alternate universe in which she didn't steal the suit…I was actually writing my first fanfiction while reading this book when I was 14… ah, memories. Random drabble. I'll update other stuff too, don't worry.

Ayaia


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